Help & Support

Popular Questions

The Fair Offer Policy is an optional policy that people can use when they post Offers. If someone chooses to use the Fair Offer Policy, it means that they have agreed to wait a period of time before choosing who to give their item(s) to. This gives people who receive the digest emails, or those who are online less frequently, a fair chance to reply to the offer.

"A period of time" is usually just one day though some groups ask their members to wait two or three days when using the Fair Offer Policy.

Note: The Fair Offer Policy does not mean that someone is offering an item for sale. Buying and selling is not allowed on freecycling groups.

The trash nothing! site is simply an alternate interface for existing freecycle groups around the world.
The site was designed to make freecycling easier and solve a lot of the problems that the existing groups
have from using Yahoo Groups (such as spam and email overload among other things).
So you can access all your freecycling groups in a quicker and easier way.

Underneath the hood, we provide free email accounts to subscribe you to freecycling groups on Yahoo Groups. If you're interested in learning more about how these email accounts work, check out the Moderator FAQ.

Usually the photos are linked to or shown with the post when you view a post on the site or in the app. But some people access the groups from the Yahoo Groups site which has a separate photo section. Posts with photos from Yahoo Groups will often have a dropdown menu below the post details. The dropdown menu should allow you to open and view the photo albums from Yahoo Groups.

Sadly, due to limitations in how Yahoo Groups works, the specific photo or album referenced in the post may not always be available. If this happens, it's usually easiest to contact the post author directly and ask them to send you the photos. The only other alternative is access the photo section directly on the Yahoo Groups site (if you aren't a member of the group on Yahoo Groups, you'll have to join the group on Yahoo Groups to access the photos - see links to Yahoo Groups).

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About

Simply tell them to visit trashnothing.com to sign up (or install the trash nothing app from the app store).

Telling your friends, family and co-workers about trash nothing! is the best way to help your local groups grow and help keep more stuff out of the landfills.

Giving 5 star ratings on Google Play and iTunes is also a great way to help grow the groups.

If you have a bit more time, you can post flyers or reach out to local organizations and ask them to help spread the word. Find out more ways you can help (and get a copy the flyer) on the Volunteer page.

The web app is updated more frequently than the other apps and some people find that the web app works better than the native app (plus, you can bookmark the web app to your home screen to make it work more like a native app).

Account

Existing accounts from other sites such as Yahoo Groups, Freecycle or Freegle Direct can't be reused with trash nothing! because all the sites are run by separate organizations and there is no method of transferring account data from one site to another. But it only takes a minute to create a new trash nothing! account and you can remove your account at any time.

If you're logged in, you can change your password on your Profile page
by entering your old password and then entering your new password twice and clicking the button
labelled "Change".

If you don't see the password change fields on the Profile page, this means you signed up without a password using one of the one-click login methods (which work for any Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or AOL account) and you'll need to log out and use the password reset option to set a password.

Groups

*NOTE: Craigslist posts are no longer available on trash nothing as the data provider of the posts was sued out of existence by Craigslist.

Craigslist posts originate from the free section of the US and Canadian sites on craigslist.org. To control which posts you see from Craigslist, go to the Post Options section of the Profile page and use the Public Posts setting.

If you are using the trash nothing! app from the app store, it does not yet support Craigslist posts. The posts are available on the trashnothing.com site and in the web app (you can bookmark the web app to your home screen to make it work more like a native app).

Posts from Craigslist differ from other posts in the following ways:

Posts are not moderated or reviewed before being published. If you see a post that isn't appropriate, use the Flag Post option to report it.

Posts are often deleted from Craigslist much quicker than other posts. And because the data provider we get Craigslist posts from doesn't know when a post is deleted, the posts will continue showing up on trash nothing even if they have been deleted on Craigslist. To check if a post is still available before replying, use the original post link to view the post on Craigslist.

There is no reply button on the posts because replies must be sent to the contact information that shows up below or in the post (usually there is an email or telephone number).

It is not possible to submit new posts to Craigslist through trash nothing. If you need to post to Craigslist, you can do so through the craigslist.org site or by using one of the Craigslist apps that are available on the app stores.

Enter your city and state into the first search field and make sure the correct country is shown in the second search field and then click Search.

Use the map below the search fields to view the groups that are close to you (you can zoom out and view a larger area by clicking the minus sign near the top left of the map).

For each group you want to add, click on its red marker on the map to see its name.

You can then click on the name of each group to select it.

Once you've selected all the groups you want to join, click the large green button labelled "Add Selected Groups".

Once you add a group, a subscription request is automatically sent to the group.
It can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days for your request to be approved
(but we'll automatically email you once you are approved). The reason for the delay
is that some group moderators choose to moderate membership requests in order to
prevent spammers and non-local people from joining.

There are different answers depending on which location you are referring to.

The location of posts you see on the All Posts page is based on the groups you are a member of and your public post settings. You can add and remove groups on the Groups page at any time. And you can change your public post settings using the post options on the Profile page.

If you're trying to change the location description that shows up on your posts, you can only change this for new posts. Every time you post, there is a Location text field on the New Post page that controls the location description that will show up on your post.

If you're trying to change the location displayed on the map that goes with your post, simply click the link next to the map that is labelled "Wrong location?" to correct the location. This will only update the map display and so it should only be done when the map doesn't match the location described in the text of the post.

Each group is run by one or more volunteer moderators who set the rules for the group and manage the group members and group posts. You can use the Moderator contact page to get in touch with the moderators who run your local groups.

Photos

The New Post page has a button labelled "Add Photos" that you can click to add photos when you are submitting new posts. If you have problems adding a photo using the New post page, most groups do allow you to add links to photos in the details section of your post (so you can usually use a link from a 3rd party photo site like Flickr or Dropbox).

Photos can only be added to posts when a post is first submitted (and not after it is published). To learn why photos can't be added later, see the question about editing posts.

Usually the photos are linked to or shown with the post when you view a post on the site or in the app. But some people access the groups from the Yahoo Groups site which has a separate photo section. Posts with photos from Yahoo Groups will often have a dropdown menu below the post details. The dropdown menu should allow you to open and view the photo albums from Yahoo Groups.

Sadly, due to limitations in how Yahoo Groups works, the specific photo or album referenced in the post may not always be available. If this happens, it's usually easiest to contact the post author directly and ask them to send you the photos. The only other alternative is access the photo section directly on the Yahoo Groups site (if you aren't a member of the group on Yahoo Groups, you'll have to join the group on Yahoo Groups to access the photos - see links to Yahoo Groups).

Pickup

If you are the one giving away items, it's up to you to decide when and where the pickup should take place.
Often people will leave the items on their doorstep or arrange a meeting in a public place. You should arrange a time and place that works for you and the person you've chosen to come pickup the item.

If you're offering an item and someone misses the arranged pickup, it's up to you how to handle it.
Most people give the person a 2nd chance within a day or two before offering the item to the next
person in line.

It's always a good idea to collect a few replies to your offers before marking
them as taken. This makes it easier to give away your item without having to repost.

Because items are being given away, it's expected that the person chosen to receive the item will travel and pickup the item.
The pickup is done at a time and place that is arranged with the person offering the item.

Posting

Everything posted must be free with no strings attached so buying, selling, trading and bartering aren't allowed. It's also against the rules to reply to other members' posts to try to buy, sell, trade or barter with them. So please don't attempt to do this or you'll likely be removed or banned from your local groups.

There are many other sites that allow you to buy, sell, trade and barter that you can try including Ebay, Craigslist in the US, Gumtree in the UK, Kijiji in Canada and more. Trying searching Google to find more options.

The rules regarding animals are set by the volunteer moderators who run each group and so the rules can often vary from group to group. Some groups do allow animals to be posted and other groups do not. The rules for each group are often on the Group Notices page and you can contact the moderators of your local groups to ask whether or not animals are allowed.

Currently there is no way to delete or edit posts. The main reason for this is that the majority of people receive the posts by email. And because you can't change an email once it has been sent, changes to posts wouldn't be seen by people who only view the posts in their email account.

Go to the Your Posts page and click on the Offer post that contains the item(s) that you want to mark as taken. Click the button or link labelled "Mark as Taken" that is below the post title and fill out and submit the form. This will remove your old Offer post from the group listings.

If you're using the website (and not one of the apps) and if you offered multiple items in one Offer post and only one or two of the items have been taken, you should instead go to the New Post page and submit a Taken post that only lists the items that were taken in the item description and details fields.

Note: Even after marking an item as taken, you may continue to get emails about it because often people
read the Offers in their email and don't check if an Offer is taken before replying to the email.

If you're on the site, in the app or or reading a digest email, simply click on the post title to view the full details of the post. Once you are viewing the full post, click on the Reply button below the post description to compose and send a message to the post author.

Keep in mind that the person offering the item may hear from multiple people who want it, so you might not always get the item.

If the offerer picks you, you and the offerer will arrange a time and place for you to pickup the item. Usually, you pickup the item at or near the offerer's residence.

Sometimes emails end up in people's spam or junk mail folders so make sure you check your spam or junk mail folders for replies (sadly it's impossible to know if an email ends up in a recipients spam or junk mail folder). And it never hurts to resend an email if you don't hear back within a day or two.

Other times, you won't receive responses because people forget to mark their offers as taken. This causes their offers to stay on the group when they should have been removed. To help prevent this, posts are automatically removed from the listings after 30 days.

This can also happen when someone posts a popular item that causes them to get a lot of replies. Rather than reply to everyone, people often only reply to the person they choose to gift the item to.

And a lot of posts get claimed within a few hours or days of being posted. So you're more likely to get a response if you reply soon after a post is published.